After about a month of working evenings and spare time, I’ve completed the chicken coop of my dreams. It’s eight by twelve feet of glorious chicken accomodations (and storage space). I wrote a whole page/tutorial about the process that you can find here. 

The (mostly) finished coop and happy home of six laying hens!

We just got back from a fun but exhausting halibut fishing weekend. Our yearly hunting/gathering begins every Memorial Day weekend when my wife’s extended family, and about half of the congregation, travels 5 hours south and spends the weekend camping on the beach and fishing for halibut. We fish from 12ft zodiacs, which can be fairly thrilling when the waves are up. Although all of the fish were small this year, we did well and came home with a good portion of halibut meat. The weather was good, and my oldest son went out on the boat for the first time. He was pretty impressed, though he’s still too young to put up a halibut.

Tonight: beer-battered halibut!

All the halibut we caught this weekend were small, but still good eating!

These are the boats we fish from. We usually put four people in a boat. With eight halibut, there's not a lot of room when we come back!

The sunset at 11:30pm. I love Alaska.

Next up: dipnetting for salmon in a couple of weeks!

Just thought I’d let everyone know my side project, the Alaska Shared Gardens Initiative, has been expanded to include Fairbanks, Matsu,  and the Kenai Peninsula. Happy gardening!

I found the video in my last post from this article. I thought it was a fascinating view of global food issues and technology. Ultimately, it makes me wonder how my own passions related to technology can be  combined with my passion for sustainable living to help  solve the food crisis of the future. Feel free to submit your billion-dollar idea in the comments; I need money to build a chicken coop.

I heard this a cappella group on NPR a while back, and while I don’t even really care for a cappella,  their remake of “White Winter Hymnal” still haunts me. Here it is for your listening pleasure.

I love the internet. I love that one can search and find the world’s knowledge instanteously. I love that people can stay in touch with each other no matter where they are. I love how the internet has democratized knowledge, communication, and innovation. And at the end of the day, I love how fucking convenient the internet is.

Until today.

My e-mail provider (Hotmail, which is provided by Microsoft) has decided that, and I quote:  “Your account has been closed”

For some reason, they think I violated their “Terms of Use.” As such, I cannot access any part of my e-mail: no inbox, no contacts, no messages. Furthermore, there is no possible way for me to talk to a real human being about this. I tried. All I got was the voice of a robotic woman telling me that because I was not using a paid service, I was not eligible for technical support. The best I could do was to fill out a few online forms like a pleading, mewing kitten.WHAT THE FUCK? In my small, evidently 20th-century mind, I would consider my e-mail messages and my contacts to be my property. For Hotmail to block me from my own content is like an envelope company saying that they own everything you put in their envelopes.  ARRG!!!

(This is where I get more philosophical. The tea I’m drinking is helping)

Besides being an enormous inconvenience, it’s made me realize how dependent we are on our internet overlords. My credit card statements, my personal correspondence, and even the comments that are submitted on this site arrive through my e-mail account. I probably have two dozen user accounts spread across the web that are tied to my e-mail address.

At the end of the day, what we’ve effectively done is trade an immense amount of control for convenience. We pretty much sign our life away for the convenience of little e-mail messages dropped lovingly into our inbox. We trade control (and ownership) of our own communication and information for the sake of a few less licked stamps and a few less trips to the post office.  A citizen without an e-mail address might as well have leprosy! And we’ve all gone along with it, placing immense amount of trust, private information, and data in the hands of huge corporations that have no real, social obligation to their users. Just look at Hotmail’s terms of use:

“We may change the service or delete features at any time for any reason…We may cancel or suspend your service and your access to the Windows Live ID network at any time without notice and for any reason…”

When you think about it, we are experts at trading control for convenience. We eat processed foods instead of growing our own. We use credit cards instead of practicing home economics. We have “Facebook friends” instead of real ones. In short, we’ve traded so much of what is good and valuable and right in the world for “convenience.”

Thus I am stuck here, horribly “inconvenienced.” And I’m starting to realize that maybe everything I’ve traded for the sake of convenience wasn’t such a good trade after all…

I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks creating a new project: the Alaska Shared Gardens Initiative. It’s a place where people looking for garden space can connect up with people who have garden space they aren’t utilizing. Check out the video below to learn more. PLEASE head over to the website, “like” it on Facebook, and spread the word! It’d be awesome to see shared gardens start sprouting all over Anchorage!

I’m planning on attending several events this spring to further my knowledge of sustainablie living in the far north. For readers in the Anchorage area, here’s a quick run-down of what’s coming up:

Beginners Beekeeping Class

March 26th or April 9th

10am-4pm

Anchorage 1st Presbyterian Church

$35

Apple Tree Grafting Workshop

Pioneers Fruit Growers Association

April 9th

1pm

Anchorage Korean Assembly of God Church

Cost: not known

Alaska Society of American Foresters Arbor Day Tree Sale

May 14th and 21st

(The 14th is the last day orders will be accepted. Tree pick-up in on the 21st)

Cost: $20 for a bundle of 20 trees.

The bacon after it has come out of the smoker. Beautiful.

After a very successful experiment in bacon making, I’ve posted a tutorial on the site. A few buddies and I made 5 different types of bacon, and they all turned out fantastic. Check it out!